Continuing with the trend of air cargo, this week’s picture is of the MD-11F freighter N524FE of global shipping giant FedEx Express.
The MD-11 was the update to the venerable McDonnell Douglas DC-10. After a long career with many an airline, the last MD-11 passenger flight was performed on February 20, 2010 from New Delhi to Helsinki as AY022 by Finnair. Now MD-11’s form a large portion of the world’s cargo fleet.
This MD-11F flies in from Paris via Dubai, spends the night at Bangalore and flies back to Paris via Mumbai in the morning. It is tied down with almost 30 metric tonnes of weight on the nose gear, may be to counter-balance the third engine located on the tail of the aircraft. Also observe the infra-red enhanced flight vision system (EFVS) embedded in the nose cone made by Kollsman, Inc.
Another view of the unique dual tip on the MD-11 wing.
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